Hmm, so I see that MovableType 3.0 has been released, and it's no longer free. Well, there is a free version, which would probably be adequate for this blog, but if I wanted to have more in the future, or an additional author, it wouldn't be. I could buy the lowest priced personal edition, but it's $70, which seems a tad high. Why couldn't it be $29? I'd buy it in a heartbeat, and they can keep their support, it's not that hard to install.
There's nothing I hate more than overpriced software, especially from vendors who make things which are handy, but not critical. Here's a case in point, the Netware client for Mac OS X. It's $159 per seat. Uh, that's more than I've ever paid for an Operating System, and you want me to pay that for a piece of client software? No thanks.
Howabout ADmitMac? $119 to join my Mac to an ActiveDirectory? No thanks, I'll live without.
Both of these would be handy pieces of software to have, but not at the prices they charge, I'll use FTP to connect to the Netware box before I'll shell out that kind of cash. I can't help but wonder if these companies wouldn't make more money by selling a downloadable copy for $29. That's low enough that a Mac user who can't get their boss to buy it for them will consider buying it out of their own pocket, just to make their lives easier. But once you're over the $50-$75 range, you're outside what most people want to spend on their box, just to enable a "handy" feature.
NetNewsWire Pro, on the other hand, is $39. For an App that I'd use all day, every day, that's quite a reasonable price, and as soon as my new PowerBook arrives, Brent will see some of my cash. But, if that price were doubled, I probably wouldn't be paying for it, and I'd either stick to a free lite version, or use a competing product of lesser quality.
And don't get me wrong, I know that software authors need to make a living, but I wonder if they're being counter-productive in terms of what they make. You make a lot more money selling 10,000 copies of a $29 product than you do selling 1000 copies of a $100 product. And yes, I know that support costs something, so make it an option to purchase it without on-line support, if necessary. I generally don't find support, even from our large vendors to be all that helpful anyhow, just give me an online knowledgebase, and I'll fix it myself. :)
